Physics Newsletter Fall 2024

Achievement Spotlight

Highlighting prestigious award achievements for groundbreaking research and discoveries in the field.

John Hopfield was awarded the 2024 Nobel Prize in Physics

Fall Highlights

The Department of Physics has been making waves! See what we were up to.

Sanfeng Wu lab has recently developed a one-of-a-kind instrumental platform that uniquely enables far-infrared optical spectroscopy of quantum materials at millikelvin temperatures, opening the door to exploring a large, unexplored territory in quantum condensed matter research. The team, which includes Ayelet J. Uzan-Narovlansky (postdoc), Yue Tang (graduate student) and Ipsita Das (postdoc), is currently employing this instrument for investigating strongly correlated electronic phases featuring flat energy bands in two dimensional materials. PC:WU Lab
The Lisanti group published a paper led by graduate student, Sandip Roy, on numerical simulations. These simulations show the evolution of dwarf galaxies with ~95% Cold Dark Matter and ~5% Atomic Dark Matter. The Atomic Dark Matter cools and collapses, forming a small rotating disk and a cluster of dark compact objects near the galaxy's center, offering new potential tests for dark matter properties. PC: Sandip Roy

The Dunkley Group launched the Tiger3 cluster this fall. This will enable the group to analyze the incoming data from the Simons Observatory, particularly for creating new maps of the cosmic microwave background.

Special welcome to our new Graduate Administrator, Leanne Grundel, who began in September!

A few moments over the year!

Congrats Graduates

From left to right: Yanyu Jia; Corwin Shiu; Dumitru Calugaru; & Mayer Feldman

EDI uPDATES

The Advisory Board

The EDI Advisory Board has been meeting regularly this fall, planning new initiatives for the department. We have made progress addressing several goals in the EDI Strategic Plan, including representing Princeton Physics at affinity conferences and finalizing this year’s department climate survey, going live soon. One of our biggest achievements has been kicking off the new Diversity Fellows program, which supports students and postdocs who are interested in leading departmental EDI events. We see this program as critical to developing a vibrant and sustainable community engagement effort on EDI matters. Please join us in welcoming our inaugural fellows, Nate Otto and Susanna Azzoni!

Be on the lookout for our next town hall this upcoming spring!

Staff Spotlight

Mandeep Sidhu / Assistant Systems Administrator

Mandeep joined Princeton University's Physics Information Technology Group in the Fall of 2019. She is a dedicated team member ensuring the department has a smooth computing environment with minimal downtime for all of its users. Prior to joining Princeton University, she worked at the Institute for Advanced Study and the pharmaceutical industry. Mandeep is committed to learning and has a passion for technology which contributes to the overall success of the team.

She was born and raised in Toronto, Ontario, Canada and holds a Bachelor of Science Degree in Computer Science. Mandeep is very motivated in helping others and outside of work, she volunteers with her family at different community events to help serve the homeless. She also volunteers her time to be a part of her son’s South Jersey Student Visionary campaign for Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. Mandeep and her son have a hope for a world without blood cancer. In her free time, she enjoys traveling and spending time with her family and friends.

FAREWELL, REGINA

Regina Savage, our Administrative Manager, has been a part of the Physics Department for 18 years. As we near the end of this semester, we prepare to bid farewell to Regina as she embarks on her well-deserved retirement. Her dedication, support, and her presence will be deeply missed.

Special thank you to all our photo contributors and our Physics photographic historian, Rick Soden.

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phymedia@princeton.edu

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Created with an image by Prostock-studio - "Colored pillow of fresh fallen autumn leaves"